Going Down River Road

If you like your fiction raw and gasoline-powerful, Going Down River Road is the book for you. Mwangi's prose is like the home-made brew Karara, liquor of choice for the down and out in the unnamed African city that is the book's setting. From the cockroach-infested rooms on Grogan Road where Ben lives with his secretary-prostitute girlfriend Wini and her son Baby, to the ironically titled under-construction 'Development House' where Ben earns his living as a 'hand', and on to the lowlife-ridden Karara Centre on River Road which Ben and his friend Ocholla frequent in search of Karara and prostitutes, Mwangi maps the landscape of urban poverty in the third world. Going Down River Road delivers an experience that is as unforgettable as it is unrelenting. Very highly recommended, especially for lovers of postcolonial fiction.